


We're Going To The Chapel (And We're Not Getting Married)

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergent, F/M, fake dating au, fake engagement au, kind of the opposite actually, will is there but there's absolutely no romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 10:07:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7886986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon-divergent vignettes from five times that FitzSimmons pretended to be engaged throughout the seasons. </p><p>From a tumblr prompt that got a little out of hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're Going To The Chapel (And We're Not Getting Married)

**[1: Season One]**

“I think the best way to go in is for someone to be looking at it as a wedding venue,” Ward says. The entire team shifts in unison, turning to stare at him. “All the intel we have on this place is that it’s mostly used for wedding receptions, right? If we send in some people to distract the manager, May and I can get through to the back and see if the O84 is there.” 

“That’s….not a bad plan,” Coulson concedes.

“Simmons and I could go in as a maid of honor and future bride,” Skye offers. Coulson considers this and shakes his head.

“I need you running comms. We’ll send FitzSimmons.” 

“Me?” 

“Us?” 

“Yes, you two,” he sighs. “You’ll be our engaged couple looking for a place for your reception.” 

“Just don’t…do your freaky mind twin thing,” Skye warns. Her face crinkles. “Actually, no. Do it. It makes you seem _way_ married.” 

Fitz and Jemma exchange a weary look, instinctively edging away from one another. 

“If you think you can’t pull it off–” May begins, but it’s enough to ignite Jemma’s competitive nature. 

“Of course we can,” she interrupts eagerly. When Fitz looks like he might protest, Jemma steps on his toes and flashes her team an overly-bright smile. “We’ll be just fine in the field.” 

Fitz does not seem at all convinced, but he agrees anyway because there’s nothing else to be done about it. The next day, Skye and Jemma dress him up in a ridiculous hipster outfit to sell his fake persona. Jemma, of course, stayed up all night writing complex and intricate backstories for them, periodically texting bits of information to Fitz and waking him up. 

She’s really, really lucky he adores her, or she’d be dead for interrupting his sleep that many times. 

As much as he hates his stupid hipster hat, skinny jeans, and oversized flannel that Skye and Jemma have forced him into, he can’t help but admit that Jemma makes a _beautiful_ hipster. The big fake glasses (complete with camera for their undercover op, of course), flatter her face quite nicely. She doesn’t wear dresses often, but the floral patterned vintage one she’s wearing for their little experiment is incredibly appealing. 

He’s not sure what sells the shady manager on their fake engagement. Maybe it’s the sizable rock on Jemma’s finger, how tightly they hold onto each other from their nerves the easy way they talk to each other…

Or maybe it’s the way that he can’t take his eyes off of her. It’s a little embarrassing, honestly, until he hears Skye over the comms. 

“Simmons! Stop staring at Fitz’s ass, I’m trying to get a look around this place and my only view is through _you_.” 

Jemma chokes, cheeks burning red. Fitz bites down on a grin just as the manager of the venue turns around. 

“So how did you two meet?” 

Jemma seems incapable of speech, so Fitz jumps in with her prepared backstory. 

“I was touring with my band. She was at one of the shows with a group of friends–” 

“Ah,” the manager smirks. “A regular groupie, huh?” 

Jemma scoffs, shyness immediately evaporating into indignance. “I was _not_ a groupie!” 

Fitz leans over to kiss her forehead on impulse. “Sorry, she’s sensitive about that.” 

She goes quiet, relaxing against his side as they continue walking around the venue and peppering the manager with questions. As soon as Ward confirms that he and May have extracted the O84, they make their excuses and leave. 

He has to remind her to take off the ring. She slams it on the table and darts to her bunk, leaving him frowning in her wake. 

**[2: After the Pod]**

The hospital staff, which Jemma is sure can’t really be “hospital staff”, given that they seem to be a highly specialized group of doctors working for Fury, won’t let her see him for an entire day. 

“I’m sorry, Dr. Simmons,” one of the nurses says firmly for the hundredth time. “As I’ve previously said, only family should be–” 

“I’m his fiance!” she bursts out. Skye turns to stare at her in surprise, but the agent in training seems to pick up on Jemma’s lie and stands beside her. 

“They got engaged a month and a half ago,” Skye supplies. “It was a whole production.” 

“My ring is at the bottom of the bloody ocean,” Jemma says through gritted teeth. It’s easier to lie when there’s such high stakes. She’s never wanted anything the way she’s wanted to get on the other side of those hospital doors. 

“Like the Titanic,” Skye jokes awkwardly. The nurse shoots her a withering look. 

“His birth date?” 

“August 19, 1987,” Jemma rattles off. “Blood type A positive. Noticeable birth mark on his right shoulder blade approximately–” 

The nurse huffs and gestures behind her. “Say no more. Please. Go ahead.” 

Jemma pushes past her and doesn’t spare a glance back at Skye, who calls out to her. 

“Give him a kiss for us!” 

When Jemma bursts through the doors to his room and sets eyes on him, she can’t really think about anything at all. Her body goes cold and she chokes on a sob, grateful that she is alone for this. 

When she finally calms down, she perches gingerly on the edge of the mattress to kiss his cheek.

“From the team,” she sniffs.

She moves to his other cheek.

“From me,” she whispers. 

Then her forehead falls to his shoulder and she finally, finally allows herself to cry.

[ **3: Puerto Rico, Season 2** ] 

This is the most awkward thing that he’s ever had to do. Holding hands with Jemma, walking through Puerto Rico, pretending that they’re looking to get married in this church. 

It’s all to try to get access to the hidden temple underneath, but acting like he wants to elope with his estranged best friend–who he happens to be in unrequited love with–is just painful and uncomfortable. 

Jemma leans into him with a high pitched giggle. “When you know, you know!” 

The priest smiles at them. “Ah, yes. Young love. But here in the Catholic Church, we are not one for rushing things.” 

Jemma frowns. “Oh, this isn’t a rush. We’ve known each other nearly our entire lives.” 

The priest looks to Fitz for confirmation. After all, he’s been exceedingly quiet this entire time. “Since uh–since we were sixteen.” 

The priest doesn’t look convinced by Fitz’s stuttering, and he desperately points to his temple. 

“Sorry. I was–I had an accident.” 

Jemma tenses her grip on his arm. “We’ve known each other ten years, Father. I know that I never want to be without him.” 

He can’t help but look over at her, and he’s surprised to find her brown eyes already focused on him. She smiles softly, a little nervously, and he returns it. 

She turns back to the priest and leans her head on Fitz’s shoulder. “It sounds as though you have faced many challenges together.” 

“You could most certainly say that,” Jemma sighs. Fitz snorts and she steps lightly on his toes.

“Mhm,” he hums in agreement. “But like she said–I–well, I couldn’t imagine my life without her.” 

“Come back tomorrow,” the priest says with a warm smile. “We will speak again and see about a marriage.” 

Jemma smiles happily and thanks him profusely. They bought plenty of time for Bobbi to get into the tunnels. She walks with Fitz back out into the streets but doesn’t let go of his hand. He glances down at their fingers with a furrowed brow, and Jemma simply grips tighter.

“You were great in there,” she tells him breathlessly. 

“Yeah, well, I’m not completely useless,” Fitz grumbles. She drops his hand as if she’s been burned, and he immediately regrets lashing out. 

**[4: 4,722 Hours]**

The astronaut she’s been sharing space with for over a month nods at the screen of her phone. 

“Who is he?” 

Jemma smiles down at Fitz’s face, her thumb running over the photo fondly. “Fitz.” 

“And who’s Fitz?” 

Jemma looks up at Will with a furrowed brow. He seems interested, a bit too interested, and even though she’s been stranded on this planet for quite a while now, she wasn’t born yesterday. As a nubile young prodigy with an above-average fashion sense, she had her share of suitors–and every single one of them had been jealous of Fitz. 

As he should be, she thinks, since not only is she absolutely determined to get back to Fitz, she also has no interest in starting some kind of romantic entanglement with the only other person on this planet. 

That’s a recipe for disaster. Despite the isolation and exhaustion and desperation of this place, she refuses to be a fool. 

“He’s my fiance,” Jemma lies easily. It’s a large leap from We Have A Date, which is what’s really going on, but simply calling him her best friend doesn’t feel right either. 

“Oh,” Will says. He sounds a bit disappointed, but he shakes it off. “He must be worried about you.” 

Jemma’s throat feels tight. “He’s looking for me. I know it.” 

“I’m sure he is,” Will agrees. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t give up. It’s been months.” 

Jemma shakes her head rapidly. “He would never. He would never give up on me.” 

Will doesn’t look convinced. Jemma feels a pang of sympathy for him. Poor Will, abandoned here with no escape and no one looking for him, for fourteen years. She can’t even imagine. 

“I’ll try not to give up on him,” Will smiles sadly. Jemma returns her focus to the photo.

“It’s alright if you do,” she says softly. “I won’t. Not this time.” 

It’s a couple of more months until she’s fighting against a sand storm to reach Fitz. Her partner in survival and friend Will holds off that _Thing_ behind her. She hears the gun shot and her heart stops, but she keeps going. It’s what he would want her to do, and she can’t stay here. She can see Fitz, can hear his voice–she can’t let go of his hand, and they fly back through the portal with the force of the wire on his belt.

She comes to in his arms, surrounded by rubble and warmth and Fitz. Nothing feels real, and she closes her eyes with her face tucked in his neck, just glad to be alive. Just glad to be here. 

**[5: The Singularity]**

“I think you should wear a ring,” Fitz suggests as Jemma shrugs on the red jacket. It looks nice on her, as do the leather pants, but he kind of prefers her the way she usually dresses.

She turns to look over her shoulder with a teasing smile. “Why’s that?” 

“I don’t want these transhumanists to get any ideas about you,” he shrugs casually, but his furtive attention to the comforter on the bed gives him away. 

“Aw,” Jemma laughs. “Are you worried that this little get up is going to get me too much attention?” 

He grumbles something unintelligible. Jemma moves across the room to sit down on his lap and he wraps his arms around her.

They’ve been together since she came back. Well, a few weeks after, when they’d finally gone on their date. It’s been a long road, dealing with her guilt over the astronaut who died to send her home and the PTSD she’s had to wrestle with from her time on an isolated planet. 

They’ve had to deal with other things, too, like her time in Hydra and the way her abandonment had made him feel. But they’ve done it, and they’ve come out the other side, and now they’re taking point on an undercover mission.

Jemma nuzzles her nose against his and gives him a quick kiss. “I think it’s clear that we’re together, Fitz.” 

“I’d just feel better if–” 

She rolls her eyes fondly. “Alright. Fine.” 

He beams, stealing another kiss before she gets off of him. She goes to drawer where she keeps her jewelry, frowning when she can’t find the ring she had used on the Bus. She had held onto it for some reason. At the time she hadn’t recognized why. 

Maybe it fell into the drawer below, the one where Fitz had started keeping his socks when he moved into her place. She rustles through them just as Fitz begins protesting.

“Ah, you don’t want to look in there–” 

“How come?” she asks, consumed by her search. 

Her fingers touch a velvet box and she snatches her hand back as though she’s been burned. Her back is to him so she can’t see his face, but she’s sure that he must be trying to come up with some excuse.

For once, Jemma doesn’t want to know what’s going to happen. She does her best to keep her face neutral as she turns around to announce that she’s giving up the search.

A knock on the door startles them and Bobbi enters. “You guys ready? It’s time to go.” 

Jemma nods with a plastic smile. “Mhm. I was just looking for a fake ring I’ve used before.” 

Bobbi laughs and leads the way into the hallway. “We can stop by my room on the way out. Just use my wedding ring.” 

Jemma can’t stop thinking about the velvet box, but she bites her tongue and doesn’t mention it. She slips on Bobbi’s ring–a bit too big for her–and get so consumed in the mission that she nearly forgets about it. 

Over the next several months, it stays in the back of her mind at all times. She doesn’t actually _see_ the box until they’re in the Seychelles.


End file.
